Vol. 64/No.18 May 8, 2000

Court hears debate on Miranda rights

BY MAURICE WILLIAMS

The U.S. Supreme Court recently heard arguments in a case on the landmark Miranda ruling, which requires cops to inform anyone they detain of their right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer. Justifications to scrap the 34-year-old decision were presented in a crowded courtroom April 19. A decision by the high court is expected in June.

The case before the court, Dickerson v. United States, is on appeal after a ruling from the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, dealt a blow to Miranda rights. It overturned a decision by a Federal District Court in Virginia, which had ruled that a confession by Charles Dickerson to being a driver in a bank heist in 1997 should be thrown out because the cops had not given him the Miranda warnings before interrogating him. The Fourth Circuit court, as the basis for its decision, resurrected a little used federal law passed by Congress in 1968 that sought to undermine the Miranda law.

The famous Miranda warnings stem from the 1966 Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, which said cops are required to inform anyone they arrest of their rights before questioning them. In 1963 Ernesto Miranda was arrested and convicted on kidnapping and rape charges in Phoenix. Miranda initially said he was innocent but after a few hours in police custody he signed a confession.

Miranda appealed the case, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination had been violated. The cops had not told him of his right to legal counsel or the right to remain silent while in police custody. Three years after his arrest the Supreme Court ruled by a 5-4 vote that a suspect's statements cannot be used in trial unless they have been informed of their rights. The ruling was based on the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that states, "No person...shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself."

1968 Omnibus Crime Control Act

This blow to the ability of the cops to intimidate people, force "confessions," and prevent access to legal representation was quickly taken up by the U.S. Congress. Two years after Miranda v. Arizona, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. It included Section 3501, which was aimed at overruling Miranda rights by allowing "voluntary" confessions to be used in trials, even if the Miranda warnings were never read.

In Dickerson v. United States, the Appeals Court ruled that Section 3501 had effectively overturned Miranda for federal prosecutions. In the arguments before the Supreme Court, Solicitor General Seth Waxman argued on behalf of the Clinton administration for reversing the prior ruling and maintaining Miranda rights. He stated, "Stability in the law is important, and it is nowhere more important than in this case." Waxman added that "the case has not been made to overrule Miranda v. Arizona."

Speaking for the 1997 Appeals Court decision that ruled against Miranda, Paul Cassell told the justices, "Section 3501 enumerated factors giving very clear incentives to law enforcement agents to deliver warnings. He maintained that the Miranda warnings are simply procedural safeguards, not constitutional mandates and asserted that Section 3501 was an "adequate" substitute.

The Miranda decision strengthened the democratic rights of working people against coerced confessions and helped to put a halt to cop manhunts that occurred throughout the country where suspects were rounded up en masse and detained, sometimes for several days.

In a recent Washington Post opinion column, Colbert King wrote, "Everyone who walks the streets of America, especially people without money and with little education, ought to watch what the high court does with this case. There's a strong push on to overrule Miranda. Lord help us if the court agrees." King cited the response by cops in the nation's capital after the murder of Alyce Taggart, a white woman, in 1953.

"D.C. cops gave new meaning to the term 'dragnet,'" he wrote. "Men just seemed to disappear off the streets. Some were gone for days." Within three days of the murder, more than 600 people had been questioned before the cops nabbed Clarence Watson, a 19-year-old Black youth, who allegedly confessed to the killing.

The youth was held in secret custody by the police and interrogated throughout the night, with no warning of his Fifth Amendment rights and no legal counsel. The cops didn't file a complaint against Watson until more than 20 hours after his arrest.

Watson was put on trial once and not convicted. On the state's second try he was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to die in the electric chair. The verdict was overturned on the cop's failure to warn him of his right against self-incrimination.

In a separate ruling, the Supreme Court said that cops going down the luggage rack of a Greyhound bus squeezing the bags of passengers is an unconstitutional search and invasion of privacy. The court overturned the narcotics conviction of a man whose bag was probed by a federal Border Patrol agent conducting an immigration check on a bus traveling through Texas.

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